Blog

Monday 13th February, was one of those occasions where the various hats combined in a good way, with a ceremony that took place in Glossop Cricket Club to induct Peter Matthews JP as a freeman of the borough of the High Peak.

The ceremony was the follow up to a motion at the council in October, which was proposed by the leader of the council and seconded by myself, to propose that Peter becomes a freeman of the borough.

Peter was first elected as a councillor to the Glossop Borough in 1964, and served as Mayor of Glossop in 1969.

Peter became a Magistrate in 1969, a role he held for over 36 years until his retirement, including been chair of combined High Peak bench, and upon his retirement in 2005 he was placed on the supplementary list of magistrates and retains the title of Justice of the Peace.

In 2007 he became an independent member of the Council’s standards committee, becoming chair of it in 2008 – a role he held until the change of the 2011 local government act which created the role of the Independent Person, a role he continues to hold to this day using his experience to guide the council’s standards committee.

The event fitted nicely into the theme / feel from the weekend which had been all about local democracy, and Peter been a prime example of the public / civic service and involvement that we need to encourage more of.

Last weekend (10th / 11th February), I once again had the opportunity to both attend of cover Notwestminster.

Notwestminster is a great weekend of talking, listening and learning on issues around local democracy, held at the excellent Media Centre in Huddersfield.

It starts off with a day of local democracy experiments on the Friday, followed later on by an evening of education and entertainment with Notwesmtinster PechaKucha, and then the main event of workshops, lighting talks and the ideas bazar on the Saturday.

PechaKucha, if you’ve never heard of it, is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images for 20 seconds each, with the presenter talking along as the slides advance automatically. Last Friday’s presentations themed to tie into Notwestminster, covered the history of local authorities, community information, using digital in local planning and more, not quite as unusual as one of last years offerings which looked at the missing parts of the Godfather trilogy.

Thursday 1st December saw this years Gamesley Celebration of Achievement 2016, an event that I’m always happy to cover, as it is about highlighting the work of locals who are working to improve there local community.

This year’s event was attended by Cllr Anne Western the leader of Derbyshire County Council, and along with the range of local community awards, featured a special presentation to current local county councillor Dave Wilcox, who is retiring after many years of service to the local community.

The event now in, it’s third year saw over 40 stalls, along with a range of entertainment take over the streets of the ‘historic’ heart of Old Glossop centred around the Old Cross and the Glossop Parish Church.

As you can see from the picture above, the event was heaving, and I hope the various traders and community groups in attendance had a great day, my only niggle and it’s a minor one was the reduced number of folk this year manning the stall, that took to victorian costume for the event.

Saturday 26th November, saw Glossop get officially into the Christmas spirit, with a special Christmas Market, and the switching on of Glossop’s Christmas Tree.

The festivities started early on in the day with the special Christmas Market, which saw an extended range of stalls on the outdoor and indoor market, staying open until 7.00pm rather than the normal earlier closing, along with a range of entertainment on the outdoor market, including a performance from the Cherry Bom Bombs burlesque troop.

Along side this from the afternoon onwards Norfolk Square was transformed with a range of food, gift and community stalls along with a few fair rides on the front near the Norfolk Pub, and the Mountain Rescue Santa.

Switch on was just before 7.00pm, with the lights been turned on by Pete Wallroth from Mummy’s Star along with the Mayor and Mayoress and the Mountain Rescue Santa.